Assistive Technology for Employees with Disabilities (EWD)

THIS IS A SPECIAL NOTICE. This Special Notice (SN) is for planning purposes only. The Social Security Administration has developed a draft statement of work (SOW) that is being provided to industry for review and comments. This should not be considered as an invitation for bid, a request for proposal, a request for quotation, or as an obligation on the part of the Government to acquire services. Responses to SSA's draft SOW will be treated as informational only. The Government will not pay for information or comments provided in response to this Special Notice or for any follow-up information received. The information provided may be used by SSA in developing its acquisition strategy and SOW. The draft SOW is attached to this SN. SSA anticipates issuing a solicitation document targeted to Small Business Association 8(a) firms during the fourth quarter of this fiscal year for a multi-year indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract. The purpose is to provide SSA with technical expertise necessary to provide support services and assist with planning, procuring, configuring, installing and optimizing hardware, software, and procedures for IT systems in support of operational activities. Support includes hardware installation and configuration, software installation, help desk support, research and development efforts, and engineering support to configure assistive technology (AT) to SSA's environment as well as the implementation, and maintenance of AT products. The Agency currently has approximately 1,600 Employee's with Disabilities (EWD) working at SSA and State Disability Determination Service (DDS) offices nationwide to include Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and 19 Foreign Service Posts. Each employee has a local area network (LAN) attached workstation and various AT devices and software necessary to perform job functions. SSA seeks information and comments from industry for preliminary planning purposes only. This SN will allow industry the opportunity to verify reasonableness and feasibility of the Government's requirement and to affirm that there is a general understanding of the requirement. This SN should not to be construed as a commitment by the Government, implied or otherwise, to issue a solicitation or to award a contract. A detailed description of the procurement is contained in the attached DRAFT SOW. If a solicitation is released, it will be posted on the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) website at www.fbo.gov. It is the potential offerors responsibility to monitor this site for the release of any solicitation. Responses from industry MUST be submitted via email to tyrone.lewis@ssa.gov by January 27, 2012 at 5pm EST. The subject line of the submission should read "EWD Special Notice". No phone calls will be accepted, nor will questions be answered with regards to this RFI